1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a groupware development assisting system. More specifically, it relates to a system for assisting designing and development of groupware which supports the execution of a series of works which is made by a plurality of workers using electronic mail for communication between individual workers.
2. Description of the Related Art
A system for assisting work which is conducted by a plurality of workers is generally called groupware. Among such groupware, one used on the assumption that all workers work at the same time is called realtime type groupware, and one without such an assumption is called non-realtime type groupware. This invention mainly relates to non-realtime type groupware.
In the non-realtime type groupware, electronic mail is generally used to communicate between workers. A typical system for assisting the communication among a plurality of workers using electronic mail as a communication means is an office automation system which uses electronic mail to treat slips and forms so as to assist works of filling or approving slips and forms. Prior art relating to this type of office automation system will be described below.
The published Japanese Patent application 4-76768 describes an electronic slip preparing device which designs and prepares electronic slips. This electronic slip preparing device can previously define processing order for activating slip processing parts for printing, approving, copying, posting or the like according to the input of data. And, the published Japanese Patent application 63-141176 describes an electronic slip system for doing office work by using electronic mail as slips. This electronic slip system includes a business conducting flow management mechanism and a business conducting automatization processing program activation and monitoring mechanism. The business conducting flow management mechanism automatically determines where a slip shall be sent or a next slip processing which corresponds to the content conditions of a slip, and when a slip processing is particularly needed, the business conducting automatization processing program activation and monitoring mechanism automatically activates an applicable processing program.
An example published as an academic society thesis includes a Brownie system which was made public in the 42nd national convention 4T-6 of the Information Processing Society and the 44th national convention 4M-4 of the Information Processing Society. This Brownie system allows giving and receiving one form as electronic mail between workers, and each worker fills out a form according to respective roles. And, a method of describing the flow of group work is also disclosed.
The aforementioned conventional groupware development assisting systems have drawbacks of lacking in convenience of the assisting system and diversity of transferring forms which the assisting system can treat. Such drawbacks will be described in detail below.
(1) As it is seen from the published Japanese Patent application 63-141176, although an electronic mail transferring order and a processing program activation condition in the groupware can be defined, its defining method has to depend on a method to enter in a condition table or a special programming language, and cannot be easily defined by a developer who does not have a specialized knowledge on an electronic mail transferring method or an application activation method from electronic mail.
(2) As it is seen from the published Japanese Patent applications 4-76768 and 63-141176, even a system which can activate a certain processing program when electronic slips or forms meet a certain condition cannot consistently design a series of order which includes intermingled processing by the system and manual filling, such as transferring the processed slip or form after the completion of processing by electronic mail to another worker. And, the Brownie system discloses a method of describing the flow of group work, but the description of the flow cannot be directly used by the development assisting system as a result of designing.
(3) Each worker in a series of works of the office automation system is merely given a fixed role based on the structure such as "assistant manager" and "manager". Therefore, when the groupware is designed using a title name such as "inspector" and "approver" relating to each step of a series of works rather than the structure, a developing method which determines which worker is given which role afterward cannot be employed.
(4) A subject series of works is limited to works which are gradually conducted by a plurality of workers laying stress on editing of documents such as entering in slips with a computer. For example, a meeting which does not use a computer or a series of works having a meeting using a computer in it such as an online realtime meeting system is not subjected to development.
(5) A series of works in which a plurality of software modules dynamically adjust mutual autonomic targets to automatically find an optimum solution can not be subjected.
(6) All workers are restricted to use the same type of computer, to use the same network, and to use the same editing program. And, the construction of a flexible system reflecting a preference of workers and a private difference of work environment cannot be supported.
(7) Designing of a worker or software object which starts the next operation after receiving a plurality of electronic mails cannot be made.
(8) A pattern which is frequently used in connection of the transferring order of electronic mail cannot be registered for reuse.